


The Tape in the Cave

by betheflame



Series: Stony Bingo 2019 [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BAMF Pepper Potts, Bucky Barnes Is a Good Bro, Community: cap_ironman, Established Relationship, Fluff and Angst, James "Rhodey" Rhodes & Tony Stark Friendship, M/M, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Stony Bingo, adults using their words
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-15
Updated: 2019-08-15
Packaged: 2020-09-01 16:37:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20261188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: Steve had no idea what was happening.“You think I didn’t know that?”Tony was staring Zemo down as though the Sokovian was actual vermin - which, Steve reflected, he kind of was.“You think that I,” Tony continued, not hiding the sneer in his voice, “Anthony Stark, who has more powerful technology in my literal fingers than most nations have, that I wouldn’t know everything possible about how my parents died? That I wouldn’t know it wasn’t an accident, that your silly little HYDRA Nazi knock-off pals are the ones who murdered them? Please, you are pathetic.”





	The Tape in the Cave

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [trustissuesinc](http://www.twitter.com/trustissuesinc) for the prompt on Twitter. 
> 
> Stony Bingo Card Fill O5: "Disapproval"
> 
> This was supposed to be 1k. Oops. 
> 
> Basically, I took Civil War and took a massive left turn from when Zemo activated Bucky and then just kept going. And it wasn't like it was canon compliant before that, so... yeah.

Steve had no idea what was happening. 

“You think I didn’t know that?”

Tony was staring Zemo down as though the Sokovian was actual vermin - which, Steve reflected, he kind of was. 

“You think that I,” Tony continued, not hiding the sneer in his voice, “Anthony Stark, who has more powerful technology in my literal fingers than most nations have, that I wouldn’t know everything possible about how my parents died? That I wouldn’t know it wasn’t an accident, that your silly little HYDRA Nazi knock-off pals are the ones who murdered them? Please, you are pathetic.”

Zemo started to react, snarling something that resembled consonants before T’Challa stepped towards him. 

“Mr. Zemo,” the king said gently. “You have no power here, how do you want this to end?”

“I want him to pay,” Zemo pointed at Tony, as though they all hadn’t realized that about ten minutes prior when he’d produced a surveillance video of the Winter Soldier killing the Starks. 

“Well, with this stunt, the feeling is mutual, pal,” Tony spat. “T’Challa, you take point here.”

Steve noticed that Bucky had stepped close to his left shoulder, barely touching it. He heard his friend whisper, “did you tell him?” Steve shook his head nearly imperceptible. 

_How did Tony find out?_ Steve wondered. 

“Cap,” Tony called from across the cave and Steve’s eyes snapped to Tony’s, which held an emotion Steve couldn’t name. “Let’s go.”

Like children shocked by a change in their parent’s behavior, Bucky and Steve both stumbled after Tony and onto the Quinjet that was parked on the ledge outside. 

Tony held up a hand each time Steve tried to speak, until finally the door was closed behind them and Tony retracted his suit completely. 

“We’ll just wait for T’Challa and then I’m never coming back to this iced over godforsaken hellhole.”

“Tony,” Steve started. 

“Cap, I don’t think we want to do this now.”

“I just want to know when you found out.”

Tony was quiet for several beats, as though answering Steve’s question would cost him greatly and he was weighing each word. “When Zemo told me.”

The entire bottom of Steve’s stomach quickly ended up in his feet. “What?”

“Yeah, when did you find out?” Tony snapped his eyes to Steve’s at the same time that Bucky said, “you didn’t fucking tell him?”

All three men heaved breaths for a few minutes, all of them torn between a desperate need to speak and a deep fear of doing so. 

The door to the Quinjet opened and T’Challa appeared with Zemo in tow, bound in vibranium handcuffs. “Mr. Stark, do you mind a brief detour to the Netherlands?”

The flight to the Hague was tense. Steve was utterly baffled that Tony had been able to react that way, to lie to Zemo so carefully, but then again, he should have learned long ago to never underestimate his boyfriend’s ability for theatrics. 

Bucky was disgusted that Steve hadn’t told Tony the truth about his parent’s deaths - especially because Bucky had asked him to. 

_“Stevie, please, he needs to know, I can’t pretend to be part of your little team until he knows.”_

_“Sure, Buck,” Steve said reassuringly. “But you need to trust me, too, I know Tony better than you do, so let me do it how he needs me to, okay?”_

_Bucky huffed. “When your mouth is on his dick?”_

_Steve blushed and rolled his eyes. “Can we not do this right now?”_

_“When would you like to do it, Steve? You have already been sitting on this for, what, three weeks? How many times since then have you told Stark you loved him? Huh? How many times have you two fucking sex texted or whatever I’m supposed to call it? Huh? Tell me, Steve, if you are waiting for a written invitation to destroy Tony’s life, will you please just give me a piece of goddamn paper?!” Bucky was near snarling at the end of his statement and Steve’s hackles were raised. _

_“I know him, Buck,” Steve replied evenly. “And you are right that this will devastate him. He has a big stupid meeting next week about the stupid accords and then he and I are going to his cabin in Maine and I’m telling him then. I have it all planned out and this way he gets told where he can freak out safely and I can help him process it.”_

_“I swear to Jesus and all his saints, Rogers, your idiot complex is only matched by your savior complex.”_

Steve was going to tell Tony, of course he was. He just… he just wanted Tony to meet his best friend before Tony met the brainwashed body that killed his parents. Was that really so selfish? 

Steve stole a glance at the man across the plane, whose jaw was set hard enough that Steve wasn’t sure Tony would have molars left by the end of the flight. _Perhaps it was._

The problem with being a genius tactician, Steve had discovered during his time as an Avenger, was that he tended to assume he had all of the angles when he made a decision. So, he knew that telling Tony about the tape before he sat through three days of stressful and terrible meetings in Brussels that they were already fighting about wasn’t a good idea. That’s why he made Friday clear Tony’s schedule and make all the arrangements for the cabin. He had the tea Tony drank to calm down delivered and had ordered a heavier weight bag than they had up there in case he needed to punch things. 

Steve had it all planned out. He’d written a few scripts out of what he would say and how he thought Tony would react and it was all fucking planned out. 

And then, Zemo. 

The entire dumpster fire that was posing as his life could be traced back to Helmut Fucking Zemo. 

_“He did it,” Bucky explained calmly. “T’Challa’s father, it was Zemo.”_

_Steve, Tony, and Nat were all silent. Sam muttered something that sounded like “of goddamn course” and Clint just looked confused. _

_“Okay,” the archer said, “who is this guy and why does he have a boner for fucking with our lives?” _

_The group was in Bucharest after a truly searing week and a half since they’d lost track of Bucky. Beyond seeing on a tape that a nerdy fellow muttered some words in Russian and Bucky became the Soldier again, the Avengers were at a loss until a mutual contact of Bucky and Nat’s contacted Nat that Bucky was, indeed, Bucky again and in Bucharest. _

_“He’s Sokovian,” Bucky explained and Tony was tapping his ear in the way that meant Friday was filling him in. _

_“Baby girl, imma just put you on speaker,” Tony said and suddenly Friday’s voice was in the small room. _

_“Helmut Zemo is a Sokovian national, Boss and team. There’s a lot here, but to synthesize, his family died in the battle and therefore he blames the Avengers for their death and now is exacting his revenge.”_

_“By turning Barnes back into Frosty the Soldier?” Tony asked. _

_“Makes sense,” Bucky replied. “He makes me comply again and I can kill you all.”_

_“Not Nat,” Clint and Sam replied in unison. _

_“Of course not,” Nat scoffed, a smile dusting her face at the familiar joke. _

They’d made a plan from there to go after him. They thought they had him at an airport in Germany, but Zemo had been one step ahead of them again. 

_“Is that the goddamn German army?” Tony screeched through his coms. “What the fresh hell is happening?”_

_“They’re here for Buck,” Steve responded. _

_“Do you speak German now?”_

_“Nazis, Tony. You learn to eavesdrop.”_

It was a frenetic battle that wasn’t without casualties. Rhodey was gravely injured and Steve and Tony had gotten in a massive fight about bringing Peter into the battle untested, but the full result was that Zemo once again escaped their grasp. 

“Stevie,” Bucky sat down next to his best friend. “I’m going to head to Wakanda.”

“Wakanda.”

“Yes, the nation whose king is currently eating your favorite cheese.”

Steve whipped his head back towards the galley to see that T’Challa was, in fact, breaking out Steve’s favorite edam. Dammit, that’s the stuff we have to smuggle. “You cashing in some vacation pay?”

“His sister,” Bucky replied. “She’s a Stark level tech wizard and I’d like Hydra out of my head.”

“Buck-”

“And you gotta fix your shit, boyo,” Bucky said seriously.

Steve looked over at Tony and back at Bucky. “I may be joining you in Wakanda.”

“And I’m sure you’ll be welcome, but if you come before you let him yell at you, then you’re a goddamn coward. You blew the call, Cap, so you better own up to it.”

____

The smug look on Zemo’s face is what had sent Tony over the edge. He was not going to give this fucker the satisfaction of winning. And if he looked over at the man he loved with all of his being, he was going to crumble, so that was also a no go.

Tony Stark was a lot of things. He was ambitious and messy and excitable and passionate and borderline manic and a good friend and a great boyfriend, but he was also deeply competitive. So Zemo thought he could ruin Tony’s life? Well, Tony wasn’t going to let him know that he had. 

It had taken about three nanoseconds for Tony to realize the look on Steve’s face at the video meant he had seen it before. The way Steve took one half step towards Bucky while the tape was playing only confirmed it. 

The plane ride was excruciating. He felt completely scraped raw on several levels. The Iron Man part of his brain couldn’t quite believe that Captain America - genetically built in a literal lab to be a good leader - would keep something so essential from one of his team members. The Tony Stark part of his brain felt like Steve had taken out his heart with a melon baller. 

Two years, they’d been together. Tony was actually starting to think about forever with Steve, Pepper had been pricing rings for him, and now… Now the small moments were on a feedback loop Tony couldn’t shut off.

_“Babe?” Steve called from the kitchen. “Do I want to know why you ordered all six kinds of pad thai they had?”_

_“I was having a crisis regarding chicken versus tofu.”_

_“Has the crisis been resolved?”_

_“Unclear. More experimentation needed,” Tony kept futzing with the holographic image in front of him. “Why won’t this… there we go… no, what if…” _

_“Oh, we have muttering,” Steve said with a grin in his voice as he brought in the first tray of food. “Chicken, tofu, shrimp. I’ll go back for the rest.”_

_“I just need to -”_

_Steve swiped his hand through the hologram. “Friday?”_

_“Yes, Captain, I agree,” she replied, and the hologram disappeared. _

_“What the fuck was that?” Tony said, startled. _

_“That’s me and Cap taking care of you, Boss,” Friday replied with a slight preen in her voice. “Your last ingestion of protein was 8.7 hours ago, which is outside the acceptable range as determined by your physicians.”_

_Tony looked at his boyfriend. “Really? We’re doing this?”_

_Steve leaned forward and cupped Tony’s face with his hand, bringing the other man in for a kiss. “Yes, love, we’re doing this. I happen to have a thing for having you alive, so yes, we’re doing this.”_

_Tony grumbled, but ate his food with a slight smile on his face. _

Out of the corner of his eye, Tony saw Barnes take a seat next to T’Challa and Steve throw a glance his way. He averted his eyes quickly, not trusting himself to make eye contact. Instead, he pulled out another file he’d been working on - using the basic arc reactor design to power cruise ships - and lost himself in his work for a few hours. _God bless compartmentalization._

_____

Tony held his tongue until they were safely in their apartment at the compound. Steve had tried to have the conversation on the Quinjet once they had dropped Bucky and T’Challa off in Wakanda, but Tony had gone into the bedroom and locked the door behind him. “Friday, lockdown protocols, level seven.”

“Yes, Boss.”

“How long,” he said quietly to Steve, looking out in the distance. 

“Tony-”

“Answer. My. Question.”

“Please look at me.”

“You,” Tony snarled, “do not make requests right now, Captain. How fucking long did you know that the Soldier killed Howard and Mom and saw fit to keep that detail to yourself?”

There were a few moments of silence, until Steve cleared his throat. “A month.”

At this, Tony whirled around and let his jaw hang open as his eyes bored into Steve’s. “A month.”

“It was in the files that Fury gave Bucky-”

“Does FURY KNOW,” Tony roared. 

“No!” Steve exclaimed. “At least, I don’t think so. The VHS tape was in the bottom of the box, labeled in Russian. Bucky came to get me as soon as he watched it, asking how to tell you.”

“So, Barnes’ first reaction was to get me in the loop and your first reaction was to, what? Sit on it until our grandkids were born?”

“No, of course not, Tony.”

“There is no ‘of course’ right now, Cap,” Tony’s voice shook ever so slightly. “I have no fucking idea who I’m having this conversation with. Am I talking to the man who claimed to love me, who made hints at forever last week, who was the first person I trusted since Pepper to see my scars? Huh? Am I talking to my team leader? The one who makes unilateral decisions for his team without consulting us but who promised me we would always fight every fight together? Is is that guy?”

As he spoke, Tony had taken several steps towards Steve without breaking eye contact. Now that he was standing nearly nose to nose, Steve could see the sheen of tears over Tony’s eyes. 

“Or, is it the guy who claims to love me, the fun version of the first guy, but who also doesn’t trust me that I know what I’m doing with all the bureaucratic jackwagons I’m herding like fucking cats to just keep us all safe? Maybe that guy? Tell me, Captain Rogers, which guy am I speaking to?”

Steve ground his jaw. “You’re talking to me, Tony. You’re talking to the man who loves you, who wants nothing more to protect you from more pain. You’re talking to you boyfriend who knew that you had a huge meeting with those jackwagons and wanted you to go in fighting fit so that you could own them and not be distracted by some really traumatic news. This weekend,” he paused, “in Canada, is when I was going to tell you. I had the tape transferred to a thumb drive and we were going to watch it. I ordered punching bags and your favorite tea and we were going to sort it out together.”

“That all sounds really lovely, Cap,” Tony retorted and Steve realized that Tony hadn’t used his first name since the cave. “But you forgot one major element: this is my trauma, mine and Barnes’. He had to watch himself do it and I had to watch someone in his body do it and fuck you for thinking you knew better than both of us about how to handle it.”

“I’m sorry, Tony,” Steve whispered, which only seemed to enrage Tony more. 

“Are you sorry because I’m right? That you have always been a controlling, paternalistic fuckwit when it comes to me and your boy? That you think you know better than each of us?”

“That’s not fair,” Steve protested, his anger growing. “I love you both. Bucky is my brother and you are my boyfriend and you’re both self-destructive idiots. I just got him back, I just got him back from them and I could not wait for the two of you to be friends, and all I did was what anyone who loves someone would do, I protected you from unnecessary pain!”

“No! That is NOT what you did,” Tony spat as he surged away from Steve and began to stalk around the room. “What you did was make suppositions for us. You honestly think I’d fight any less hard for the right versions of these accords once I’d seen the tape? You honestly, honestly, Cap, you honestly think that if I’d seen it a goddamn month ago that I wouldn’t have still gone after Barnes with every weapon in my arsenal? Do you think so little of me that I wouldn’t be able to understand that your Bucky and the Soldier are different people?”

Steve was silent for a beat long enough for Tony to keep going. 

“Oh my God, you did.” Tony’s voice took on a tone of amazement. “You honestly doubted me enough that I’d think, that I’d blame, did you forget I was tortured for months? I fucking know what it’s like to not own your body any more, I was kept alive by scar tissue and a magent for a fucking long time, you insufferable egotist. Was this entirely about making sure that I’d still play nice with your boyhood bestie?”

“It was more than that,” Steve said sharply. 

“Right, well, it’s not more than that now,” Tony said. “We’re done, you and me. Iron Man and Cap, I’ll figure out how they’re fine, don’t worry, but you and me? I’m going to head to the Memphis lab - they’ve been fucking around with some of the areospace shit and I’ll be back on Wednesday. If you could be back in Cap’s assigned quarters that would be great.”

“Are we going to talk about this?” Steve reached for Tony, who moved farther away and towards their bedroom. “I’m sorry, I said I was sorry, I’m really very sorry.”

“I get that, I do, but right now all I can see when I look at you is a man who doesn’t know me, who doesn’t trust me, and I grew up with one of those, so all full up here on that front,” Tony smirked. “Friday, darling, did you catch all of that?”

“Yes, Boss.”

“Great, then lift level seven and shift the Memphis folders onto the portable and make sure a Quin is ready in 30.”

“Anthony, please,” Steve was not above begging. This was all happening too fast. 

“No, Rogers,” Tony said forcefully and snapped back around to face Steve. “No. That name is for someone who hasn’t just broken my heart.” Tony’s voice caught and Steve could see the tears spilling down Tony’s face. “That name is not for you now.”

Steve could barely breathe as he watched Tony walk away, and he knew he certainly couldn’t watch him get on that jet and fly away. He forced himself to move towards the gym, figuring that it would feel really good to punch a few things while he tried to figure out exactly when his life had gone completely sideways.

_____

“More broken white boys?” Shuri looked skeptically at her brother as Steve stepped into the lab. “This is getting excessive, brother.”

“This one is only broken because he was an idiot,” Bucky volunteered with a grin on his face. 

“Thanks for the support, Buck,” Steve drawled sarcastically. 

“No problem!” Bucky said cheerfully as Shuri drew some more blood. They were about four days away from putting him back in cyro again, but there were a few more tests she needed to run. 

“Captain Rogers will be staying with us as an honored guest, sister,” T’Challa responded. 

Steve had moped around the compound in his old rooms for about four days after Tony left. He’d done a lot of staring at the wall and trying to get Friday to help him figure out where he went wrong (Sorry, Captain Rogers, I won’t talk about Boss that way), and then a lot of running. _A lot_ of running. 

_“Steve, don’t get me wrong,” Sam huffed as they hit mile 10 that day, “I like running. I love running. I don’t hate you. But this is a lot.”_

_Steve grunted. “I’ll go alone tomorrow.”_

_“No,” Sam said. “That was your cue to explain to me why the fuck we’re running so much.”_

_Steve side-eyed him. “Tony broke up with me.”_

_“Tony what now?”_

_“He broke up with me,” Steve’s voice scraped over the tears clogging his throat. _

_“Tony Stark, the man so in love with you that it makes my cold shriveled heart believe in soulmates? That man broke up with you? What the fuck did you do, man?”_

_“Nothing,” Steve said. “It’s all a misunderstanding.”_

_Sam snorted. “Yes, because Tony responds super well to being called a drama queen.”_

_Steve was quiet for a few minutes. “I kept something from him I shouldn’t have.”_

_“For a good reason?”_

_“Yeah. Well, I think it is.”_

_“Does he?”_

_“No,” Steve confessed. “And he found out from someone else.”_

_“Ouch,” Sam replied. _

_“So, he’s in Memphis and wants me out of our apartment by the end of the week.”_

_“Serious ouch.”_

_“Thanks for your crack analysis, Therapist Sam,” Steve said wryly. _

_“You got a plan, Cap?”_

_“Well, Bucky’s going back into cryo in a few days over in Wakanda, so I think I’ll go there and see him off, as it were, and then… probably groveling?”_

After Shuri finished, Steve followed Bucky back to his quarters and watched as Bucky started preparing some sandwiches from the foods Steve had brought over from New York. The lack of customs worked really well for them. 

“So,” Bucky said through a mouth full of corned beef on rye, his eyes rolling back in his head slightly at the joy, “you figured out why you embarrassed yourself yet?”

“I was trying to protect him from pain,” Steve said. 

“Bang up job, Stevie,” Bucky replied with a smirk. 

“You are enjoying this way too much,” Steve scowled at him. 

“Nah,” Bucky said. “I’m enjoying this just the right amount.”

Steve started to speak before Bucky cut him off. “Listen, punk, you fucked up. It happens. You didn’t fuck up so badly that you can’t use your words like a big boy and fix it. You blew a call, Stark’s blown a few, too, but this isn’t a permanent thing unless you make it that way.”

“He kicked me out of the house, Buck,” Steve protested and Bucky snorted. 

“He asked you to move out of your rooms to the entire apartment he built for you no more than seven yards away. Stop being dramatic.”

“You’re a pain in the ass,” Steve retorted and took a bite of his own ham and cheese. 

“Proudly, yes, since 1919,” Bucky affirmed. “But so are you, and so is your boyfriend, so really, you two are made for each other and I’m happy to serve as fairy godfather in this instance. Now, Shuri keeps kicking my ass at that car game with the cartoons. Do you know it?”

“Mario Kart? Yeah.”

“Good, teach me,” Bucky grinned. “But I get to be the princess.”

_________

“Boss,” Friday started tentatively.

“He’s here, isn’t he, sugar plum?”

“Yeah, Boss.”

Tony sighed. “Tell him the lab and that all his codes are restored.”

After storming back onto the jet that day, Tony’s pure rage burned off somewhere over West Virginia and settled into a type of sadness he couldn’t quite name. 

_“Tones,” Rhodey’s voice came through the speakerphone as Tony tinkered with an engine in the unfamiliar lab. “Just go home.”_

_“I can’t look at him right now,” Tony replied. “Don’t push me, Platypus.”_

_“I’ll push you when you’re being a fucking child,” Rhodey replied. “How many times have you been a cyclone of emotional disaster when you thought you were doing the right thing?”_

_“Fuck you, Rhodey.”_

_“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Go home.”_

Professionally, going to Memphis had been a great idea. He and the R&D team had made some significant strides and Pepper had been so pleased that she had flown down to see it. 

Or, that was her cover. 

_“He’s in Wakanda,” she said quietly over dinner on her final night in town. They were in Tony’s hotel suite, enjoying some truly exceptional barbeque. _

_“I know,” Tony replied. “Friday.”_

_“So do you want me to clear your schedule to go over there, then?” It never ceased to amuse Tony that Pepper still acted like his PA sometimes even though she was his boss._

_“No,” Tony sighed. “I’m going home. They’re putting Frosty back in his ice bath in a few days and then Shuri’s promised me that she’ll make sure Steve wears out his welcome. I don’t want to have this conversation anywhere but the compound, so I’ll go wait for him.”_

_“And you’ll say?”_

_Tony shrugged. “That it really fucking hurts he didn’t trust me? That I understand why he did it, but that it still fucking hurts?”_

_Pepper rolled her eyes. “I’m not sure you’re allowed to steal my break-up line to use on your fella, Anthony.”_

_He smiled affectionately. “I learn from the best, Pep. I learn from the best.”_

_She winked and giggled a little, and Tony saw the light bounce off her engagement ring once again. She and Happy were exactly who they each deserved. “Love is a choice, you know that. If you chose him the way you say you do, then lick your wounds and check your pride and go work it out. He’s not worth losing over something like this, something that honest conversation could fix.”_

_“God help and forgive me, Pep, I love him.”_

_“Then tell him that.”_

The door to the lab slid open behind Tony and he’d know those footsteps anywhere. Mostly sure, yet still slightly off balance, like Steve still moved as a 98-lb man. 

“You bring me back those nuts I like?”

“Two cases,” Steve replied. “And I had the jet stop in Nairobi.”

Tony could hear the footsteps heading for the couch - heading for Steve’s usual seat in the lab. “How many bags of coffee?”

“Eight bags of Java House, and a six-pack of that gross Fanta you like.”

“Black currant is not gross!” Tony protested. 

“It is, Tony. It really is,” Steve said and Tony could hear the smile in his voice. This was a well rehearsed fight. 

Tony turned towards the couch. “So, we’re both drama queens, according to all of our friends.”

“Bucky actually called me an ‘embarrassing pain in the ass’,” Steve said. 

“Oh, I got ‘fucking child’ from Sugarbear,” Tony said as he put down his wrench and headed for the couch. He flopped on the opposite side and curled himself so he was facing Steve. 

Steve ticked off his fingers. “Sam told me to be honest, Nat called me something in Russian I’m sure meant idiot, Clint told me all the ways he’d fucked up with Laura, but they all told me we could fix this, which I really want to believe.”

Tony quirked an eyebrow. “You don’t?”

“I know I want to,” Steve said quickly. “But I get that I really made the wrong call and I should have talked to you immediately and that you don’t need protecting as much as you need a partner.”

Tony blinked rapidly. “Well, that cuts to it.”

Steve smiled and tentatively reached for Tony’s hand. “The way I figure it is that the world is not going to stop being a dumpster fire and you are the only man who I want by my side as we try to put it out. I will do whatever I need to to earn back your trust, I swear, but I really am sorry, Tony.”

Tony wrapped his fingers through Steve’s and Steve let out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. “I’m old, Steve. Don’t argue with me. I’m old. After Pep, I wasn’t going to do this again, I wasn’t going to throw myself out there, and then you happened. I’m not, I can’t, I mean, this really hurt, really, really hurt, and I felt like you took my entire self and just lit it on fire, but when I calmed down a bit, I realized that I can’t lose you over something you did because you loved me. So, I need some time, probably, but I say that and now that I’ve seen you I want to just lick you top to bottom because I have missed you, I have missed you like I’d miss, I don’t know, a limb, oh, that’s on the nose, isn’t it-”

Steve had learned long ago that the only way to get Tony to stop talking when he went into a circle was to just… stop him. So, he tugged slightly on Tony’s hand and pulled the other man into a kiss. Tony paused for a mili-second before melting into it. 

He pulled away a few moments later. “This doesn’t fix it, handsome.”

“I didn’t think it would,” Steve reached up to stroke Tony’s cheek. “It shouldn’t. I really did fuck up and the instinct that I followed to do it is really, really strong, so we have some work to do. But I’m 100 goddamn years old and I’m not starting over again because I was stupid, not if I don’t have to.”

“You don’t have to,” Tony whispered as he kissed Steve. 

They stayed on the couch for a few minutes, before DUM-E nudged Tony because Butterfingers had done something and Tony was up on his feet. “DUM-E, we have talked about blankets, no, stop it. Why don’t you get Steve his bag?” 

DUM-E brightened and whirred over to a cubbyhole to grab a canvas bag with a sketchbook and pencils. 

“You kept it down here?”

“Well, I tried to light it on fire, but DUM-E and his extinguisher obsession. Gonna start calling him WALL-E.”

Steve smiled and Tony caught his eye briefly. 

_It’s going to be fine_, he thought as he got out his sketchbook and opened to the last sketch he’d been working on. _Maybe not great for a while, and it’ll probably be terrible again soon, but mostly? It’ll all be fine._

**Author's Note:**

> For more of my nonsense, find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com)


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